British public health experts issuing guidance on obesity receive hundreds of thousands of pounds from the sugar industry, an investigation has found.

Funding from companies
including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé has flowed into
scientific research bodies such as the UK’s Scientific Advisory
Committee on Nutrition (SACN) and the Medical Research Council
(MRC) for over a decade.

Scientists whose work was at least partly funded and sometimes
fully funded by the sugar industry include Professor Susan Jebb,
the government’s obesity tsar.

Leading scientists blamed the government’s funding cuts for
forcing researchers into the arms of Big Sugar, while one doctor
told RT the findings were “disturbing.”

The report comes at a time when medical experts say daily
guidelines on sugar intake are misleading, with the average
Briton consuming two to three times the World Health
Organization’s (WHO) recommended limit.

According to the BMJ’s investigation, one government-funded organization,
the MRC’s Human Nutrition Research unit in Cambridge, received an
average of £250,000 a year for the past decade from Big Sugar.

Other scientists received consultancy fees from Boots, Coca-Cola,
Mars, Cereal Partners UK and Unilever. They have also sat on
advisory boards for Coca-Cola, the Food and Drink Federation and
the Institute of Grocery Distributors, the report claims.

Nutrition scientist Susan Jebb, who is the UK government’s
adviser on obesity, received £1.37 million in industry funding
between 2004 and 2015, according to the investigation.

This money came from food and retail companies including Cereal
Partners UK, which operates under the Nestlé brand, Rank Hovis
McDougal, Sainsbury’s, Coca-Cola’s Beverage Institute for Health
and Wellbeing and Unilever.

In a statement published via the Science Media Centre, Jebb
rejected the BMJ’s investigation.

“It refers to a series of studies in which I was involved
which included funding from industry. None of these involve
research into the effects of sugar on health,” she said.

“I have received no personal remuneration from any of these
projects. All have been conducted according to all the MRC
governance arrangements for working with industry and the
industry involvement has been declared.”

Dr Aseem Malholtra, a cardiologist and Science Director at the
medically led Action on Sugar, told RT the findings were
“disturbing.”

“I think it's quite disturbing. I think the public would be
appalled that the people advising them on what they eat are
receiving money from the food industry.”

“We know that biased funding for research is one of the root
causes of problems within healthcare at the moment. Whether it's
food industry funding or pharmaceutical funding.”

Universities are estimated to have lost over £460 million in
government research funding between 2009-10 and 2012-13, a
financial burden which has seen them turn to business for over £2
billion over the past decade.

Jackson said scientists were encouraged by the government to
develop a “mixed portfolio of support” for their
research which explicitly included help from industry.

“So most, if not all, researchers will have some form of
industry support and funding and hence have potential conflicts
of interest,” he told the BMJ.

“By the very nature of its complex roots and wide
interdisciplinary engagement nutrition has particular
vulnerabilities in this regard, but it is by no means unique to
nutrition.”